June 26 First box contents
Strawberries – Eat on cereal; on ice cream; on buttered toast – slice a few strawberries onto your toast, mash lightly with a fork – sprinkle on some sugar if desired. Sweet Strawberry Biscuit “Pizza”
Snow Peas – again, great raw; with dip; or in stir fry; Tahini Chicken Salad
Arugula – top a pizza with argula; use on a sandwich; make it into pesto, alone or with other herbs arugula mint pesto; mix with other greens in salads
Scallions – salad dressing; chopped in salads; scallion pancakes
Looseleaf Lettuce Mix – there’s almost too much lettuce this time of year – you get sick of salads – try Dressing in the bowl supper salad; use lettuce in wraps – like these Asian chicken ones – or use the lettuce AS a wrap for cooked Asian-seasoned beef or ground turkey or chicken
French Breakfast Radishes – radishes are great sliced in salads; topped with cream cheese; eat them the way the French do – with bread and butter
“The Beauty Mix” Radishes – These are hotter than the French radishes, but you can eat them the same way. Also pickle – clean and slice radishes, For each cup of radishes, heat about 1/3 cup vinegar, 1 TBLs sugar, and 1.2 tsp salt. Pour over the radishes and refrigerate. Try radish leaf pesto – astonishingly good for something made from a part of the vegetable you usually throw away – or compost.
Every Other Week Shares receive an Herb Pack – herb dip; pesto; on roasted potatoes – try hobo packets. Put a few small red potatoes, a lump of butter, and chopped herbs onto a square of foil. Seal into a packet and grill about 15 minutes – poke a knife in to see if the potatoes are soft.
August 21 Box contents
Dragon Langerie Beans – They turn pale green when cooked! recipes for green beans; any recipes that work for Romano beans, like slow simmered beans with tomato also very good; also use in 3-bean salad (sub in the dragon beans, cooked and cut into bite-size pieces, for the canned green beans)
Walla Walla Onions – these are a sweet onion that is a bit watery – good raw, but can be hard to sauté
Cucumbers – eat raw; sliced in sandwiches; creamy salad with sour cream; IN other salads, like tabouli; quick pickled
Summer squash, patty pan – use as you would zucchini! In breads, casseroles, gratins, stuffed. New favorite use-up-lots-of zucchini recipe – zucchini butter from Food52. When these are small, look like flying saucers, I like them fried in butter.
Carrots – honey-glazed carrots (consider spicing with nutmeg or ginger)
(Purple) Bell peppers – roasted; stuffed, with meat or vegetarian; raw
Saladette tomatoes & slicing tomatoes – You know what to do with tomatoes! One suggestion – Eggs cooked in tomato sauce: blanch, skin, and dice the tomatoes. Make into a quick tomato sauce (here’s a recipe; omit the tomato paste and the wine is completely optional), in a shallow skillet. When the sauce is ready, make indentations in the sauce with a spon and crack in eggs. Cook with a lid on until the eggs are done to your liking, sprinkle with grated cheese, cover again to get the cheese to melt, and eat with toast for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Smitten Kitchen recipe – with canned tomatoes – just sub in the fresh.
Czech black peppers – use like jalapeños, in anything where you want a little heat – fresh salsa with your onions and tomatoes and cilantro; in pickled cukes
Swiss chard – Onion pizza with Ricotta & Chard in the newsletter sounds yummy; can cook the stems as a separate vegetable (tastes a bit like beets); Tipi produce has chard recipes – http://www.tipiproduce.com/recipes/ Zucchini & chard frittata (scroll down in this newsletter from 2012) would use up both your patty pan and the chard!
Another link to the crazy but delicious NPR Diane’s Dad’s summer sandwich
October 9 Box Contents
Peppers: Bell, jalapeños, Highlander Hot Peppers. All are good roasted – here some simple instructions from Allrecipes.com (personally, I do not oil the peppers before broiling, and I cover the bowl with a plate or lid not plastic wrap, but otherwise I do it the same); with eggs – Moosewood Mexican casserole; Bell peppers can be stuffed – rice, meat, etc. To prepare peppers for stuffing, slice off the tops and reserve, remove the stems and seeds. Place the peppers in a pot, cover with cool water, then remve the peppers. Bring the water to a boil on the stove and salt it – drop the peppers in and cook for about 5 minutes. Drain and cool.
Tomatoes: slicing and Roma tomatoes. Marcella Hazen’s tomato butter sauce. Marcella passed away Sunday, September 29th; the New York Times is running a send us your favorite Marcella recipe feature.
Purple onions: Lots of people call these sweet, but they are often stringer than white or yellow onions. They are good pickled. Peel and slice the onions into rounds, then place them in a colander. Pour a kettle of boiling water over them, slowly. Pack the onions into a canning jar with one bay leaf, a few whole black peppercorns, and a pinch of sugar. Pour in cider vinegar to cover, put a lid on, and refrigerate overnight. Good on cheese sandwiches.
Beets and beet greens: The beets and their greens are delicious together – Roasted beets and sauteed beet greens; I like them in a salad with the roasted beets, the greens, a dressing of walnut oil and balsamic vinegar, toasted walnuts and goat cheese; here’s a version with oranges
Lettuce – we’ll eat with the beet greens – and reduced cider vinaigrette
Carola potatoes: these are a low starch potato that is good for frying – they don’t stick quite as much as starchier varieties! also really good roasted and in potato salads.
Kohlrabi: one of my least favorite vegetables – they taste like broccoli stems. Usually eaten raw – we’ll sample the newsletter recipe for pickled kohlrabi – which is really quite delicious!
Buttercup squash – soup! The recipe in the newsletter recommends peeling and cubing – I find that a little difficult with this squash since it is thicker and harder skinned. I steam it and used the seed and fibers to make the broth.
